A quick series of mea culpas

Huckabee: “Like my old pastor used to tell me, if they’re kicking you in the rear, it means you’re still out front.”

Fred Thompson seemed unfamiliar with his own campaign clip shown at the debate, which featured Romney advocating for abortion rights and Huckabee saying he was fine with raising taxes. Cooper asked Thompson, “What’s up with that?”

“What do you mean what’s up with it? These are their words,” Thompson said, at a loss for his own.

Romney went first, saying he was wrong on abortion. Wrong, he’ll say it again.

“If people in this country are looking for someone who has never made a mistake on a policy issue and is not willing to admit they were ever wrong, they are going to have to look for somebody else,” Romney said. “Because on abortion, I was wrong.”

Huckabee went on a windy recitation of his history of “fiscal conservatism,” and ended by saying getting attacked by his opponents isn’t a bad thing. It means they’re scared!

Oh, and Cooper asked Giuliani about that story in Politico today that raised a possibility he was billing obscure NYC agencies for security when he was hightailing out to the Hamptons for an extra-marital affair with his now-wife, Judith Nathan.

“Not true,” Giuliani said. He said he had 24-hour security for “threats” he doesn’t like to talk about, and he “had nothing to do with the handling” of the security billing, which he believes was “perfectly appropriate.”